


Notice of Baggage Inspection

by twoam



Category: TSA America: Level Orange
Genre: Airports, Developing Relationship, M/M, Pining, Weird flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29415636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twoam/pseuds/twoam
Summary: Lauderdale was a bust but other things might not be.
Relationships: Officer Franklin/Texan Passenger (TSA America: Level Orange)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Notice of Baggage Inspection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inalasahl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inalasahl/gifts).



Lauderdale sucked. 

He spent the whole trip in a daze. He fumbled and messed up his game with every woman he met. Even the co-ed in the bar who seemed so up for it when he came over eventually ditched. Said something about not wanting to be a therapist for a guy trying for a rebound too early. Fine, whatever, he'd thought to himself, licking his wounds. There would be other chicks. 

There wasn't. The booze and the sun, he managed. The chicks? Nope. He found himself knee deep in the Atlantic and thinking of the back of hands touching sensitive areas. The sun was blinding, the ocean as blue as that guy's eyes and as gentle around him as his hands were on his back. 

That was weird. The whole thing was really, really weird, even from what he'd heard about the TSA. Whatever he'd expected, it wasn't being pulled aside into a private room and then seduced. It had been weird that he'd warmed up to it, the mixture of flirting and sympathy, telling the guy things he never told anyone the first time meeting them. Even weirder how he’d leaned in, almost kissed him before the officer pulled back and ejected him from the room like it was nothing. What if he had? He wasn't like that. He wasn't the kind of guy who kissed a complete stranger patting him down, a _dude_ patting him down, but he couldn't help wondering what it’d be like if he was. He'd been close enough to. 

His lips looked soft. Maybe a little dry from the relentless AC of the airport, but they would have warmed up, softened up under his. His hair looked soft too. He could have turned into a complete mess, running his fingers through it before pushing him up against the wall. Could have rumpled that stupid uniform of his as he shoved his fingers under the belt. If he'd done it.

Which he didn't do, and which he shouldn't want to do, but he did. Here he was, in Lauderdale and not getting laid because all he could think was about a guy who'd groped him as part of his job. Probably didn't even remember him, just another day in the office but damn it, it wasn’t for him. He'd known it in that moment, standing there holding his boots, that his world had just shifted on its axis. 

Forget it. He walked out deeper, until the water reached his waist and he dived in. The water welcomed him, as warm around him as hands on his ass checking his back pockets for prohibited items.

* * *

The one thing he gained on his trip: a sunburn. Apparently, water reflected UV light. Who knew? 

The longing didn't count, because one, he wasn't longing for anything, and two, even if he was, that started in the airport before he even got on the plane. He was over that now, anyway. It was just a weird series of events. Hell, maybe it hadn't even happened. It was unbelievable. Perhaps he'd been so nervous about flying he just imagined the whole thing. 

Still, the officer wasn't on the line when he transferred. Not that he was looking that close, his heart wasn't beating faster at every glimpse of a guy with dark hair and in a uniform. So many surly people, asking for ID, swabbing his hands, diverting his bag to be inspected. None of them was the guy he saw when he was lying in bed and unable to sleep because he couldn't stop thinking about kissing him.

He requested a private pat-down. Waited in his socks for the man who haunted his dreams, and got a different man instead, three weeks away from retirement who looked at him with a mixture of resentment and boredom he'd expected first time around. 

It should have been a relief. It wasn't. It was the functional pat-down he thought he wanted, but it wasn't actually what he wanted. Or at least, he wanted something more from that officer and not a bored guy old enough to be his father. 

Whatever. He wasn't here. He just had to cowboy up, put his boots back on and get on his plane back home. Once he was back at the ranch, doing hard, honest work, he'd forget all about this.

"Opt out! Female assist!" The shout made him jump and look up from his gray plastic tray. At the scanning machine just across him, closely examining the hand luggage of the woman arguing about if she had to take her shoes off, there he was. The accidental man of his dreams. His eyes glanced up from the screen from a moment, giving him the briefest flicker of something that looked like a smile before he looked back at the scanner. Deadly serious, like he was protecting the whole of America from lethal threats and not from someone who still didn't realize they couldn't carry more than three ounces of liquids through security.

Damn it. He was more attractive than he'd remembered, even in that stupid uniform. His blue eyes attached firmly to the scans, too focused to look his way again. He thought of hands on him again as he shoved his feet into his boots with too much force before finally looking back. Still ignoring him as he switched out with a stretch of his arms and back like the ripple of a wave reaching out across white sand. The woman he was switching with didn't even notice the stretch, but he did. Thought of him stretching like that in his bedroom, with significantly less clothes on, before pushing him back onto his bed with a soft 'now, where were we?'. With a drop of his arms, the officer caught his eye, the straight line of his mouth promising nothing but his eyes were warmer, maybe offering something. 

Then he winked. Just for a moment there was a crack in that professional composure, enough to think that he was dreaming it. Then he was being harried out, the female officer at his elbow complaining that he was taking too long and holding the line up. He stumbled, bumped into the woman still complaining about taking her shoes off, and when he looked back, he was gone. Officer Blue Eyes was now off duty, only a brief glimpse to haunt him as he made his way to his gate. 

He picked a seat far away from the crowd waiting to go back to Texas. He unzipped his bag, looking for his headphones to avoid a conversation on the flight back when he just wanted to think about what the hell just happened to him. On top of his stuff was a leaflet. He glanced through it, something about inspecting his bag, security risks, whatever. He flipped it over, saw the Spanish saying the same thing. The handwriting alongside it, though, a message with a phone number at the end made him pause. 

_'Call me. We didn't finish talking. Franklin.'_

Leaning back in the seat, leaflet clutched to his chest like a lifeline, he thought of calling. Finishing that conversation, bourbon and coke but not in a plastic glass this time. Of daring to kiss him this time. Of Franklin in his bed, messed up and rumpled as he lazily watched him. A line of bright morning light on Franklin's chest from the gap in the curtains, light that said he was running so late that he was going to get his ass reamed for it, but he was delayed by the promise on those lips. 'Talk to me'.

Franklin. Okay, sure. He could do this. He crumpled the leaflet in his hand without thinking, let it unfurl again like a flower. He could totally do this. 

Maybe Lauderdale wasn't so bad after all.


End file.
